


An Anatomy of the World

by havisham



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Crossover, Gen, Original Statement (The Magnus Archives), POV First Person, POV Multiple, Post-Narnia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, The Problem of Susan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:33:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23765395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: Susan Pevensie gives a statement to the Magnus Institute. Head Archivist, Gertrude Robinson, is there to listen and observe.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 82





	An Anatomy of the World

There was a remarkably beautiful woman waiting to give her statement. She was somewhat unearthly -- with soft blue eyes and black hair lightly frosted with grey, and a profile that seemed to be cut from a cameo. She did not belong in the stuffy and uncomfortable waiting room of the Magnus Institute, but rather should be holding court somewhere. She looked up, spotted Gertrude and smiled. 

“Mrs. King?” Gertrude said, glancing down at her papers. “I’m told you have a story you wish to share.” 

Mrs. King dipped her head in acknowledgment. “Actually, I would have been content to leave it as it was, but Mr. Wright seemed quite interested in my sharing it -- as strange as it is. I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you?” 

“No, no,” said Gertrude. “It is my job, such as it is. Shall we start?” 

“Of course,” Mrs. King replied gently. “Whenever you’re ready.” 

“I think that’s my line,” Gertrude said drily. Mrs. King gave her a dazzling smile. No wonder Wright had wanted a statement from her. Statement givers rarely showed such sangfroid at the start of the process. It made it all the better when the facade cracked.

A tape recorder started up. Gertrude cleared her throat and began to speak. 

*

 **Case:** 0001220

 **Name:** Susan King 

**Subject:** On her wartime experiences in her uncle’s house and the deaths of her brothers and sister. Statement taken directly from subject. 

**Date:** April 21st, 1985

 **Recorded by:** Gertrude Robinson, Head Archivist of the Magnus Archives, London. 

I suppose so many people start their statements here saying that they’re not mad. Don’t they? Do you believe them? I won’t start like that, I can’t say for certain that what I have experienced is real. My therapist says that there are a multitude of ways the mind responds to trauma, that mental escape is sometimes the only way to survive when physical escape is impossible. 

… Poor Claire. I’m sure she thinks something really _terrible_ happened to me and I had to cover up those wounds with imagination and denial. But really, I’ve led a charmed life. My inheritance provided me with a comfortable position and my husband -- when he was alive -- was a dear. 

My family -- well, they didn’t die in the war like so many others did. It was just an ordinary tragedy that took them away. A train derailment -- they were here one day and gone the next. I was -- you know, I don’t remember why I wasn’t with them. I suppose I had a dance I wanted to attend that day and stayed behind. They teased me terribly about it, before they left. Told me I was too eager to grow up, as if I wasn’t already seventeen. What seventeen year old doesn’t want to grow up?

Of course, now with my wrinkles and grey hair, it’s a struggle to remember those times. I suppose I was a vain little thing. Quite the Queen of Sheba, as my father would say. I don’t think he really knew what that meant. We weren’t a religious family -- just ordinary COE. It was always vaguely rude to think about God or the Bible -- it was simply not our business to know such things. If God should exist, he would do what he must and we would muddle along with the rest. 

Peter, my elder brother, had a stronger faith than that. I don’t know _how_ he did, but nothing that happened to him seemed to affect him like it did me. He didn’t really seem to grow -- that is to say, he was always who he was. He didn’t change. Edmund and Lucy, my younger siblings -- eventually, they became like Peter too. The game had all of them -- but it did let me go. I don’t know why. 

Oh. What is the game? 

We invented it in Professor Kirke’s house during the war. We had been sent away from London before the bombing started. He’d written to our father offering a place for us, which surprised our parents because the Professor had had nothing to do with my father since he’d left for university years before. There were certain -- rumors about the Professor, but they were mostly unfounded. He was just a very eccentric old man, who lived in a very strange house. 

It was my little sister Lucy who invented the game. She’d come to us one day when we were playing and said that she’d gone somewhere strange and had tea with a faun. We laughed at her, of course. Fauns aren’t real, and if they were, fauns weren’t _nice._ Not the sort of people to have tea with! 

But she insisted and insisted and eventually she led us to the spare room where the wardrobe was kept. 

Now, this wardrobe had been built for the Professor’s mother --applewood, I believe. It must have been a prodigious tree to make enough wood for an entire wardrobe. Eventually, it, along with all of the Professor’s estate, came to me. But when John and I made the journey down to inspect the property, I couldn’t find the wardrobe at all. I don’t know what happened to it. Or if it existed at all. 

Lucy -- oh, I wish I could describe Lucy to you. She was a darling girl. I loved her more than anything, but I don’t think that feeling was quite returned. I suppose it happens to all sisters at that age. It’s normal to grow estranged -- we simply didn’t have a chance to come back together. She envied my looks -- quite unnecessarily, she was a lovely girl herself. But I suppose no one is that self-aware at fourteen. 

I think Lucy must have been the -- focus of it all. She channeled the thing to us. She led us into the wardrobe and when we came out again, we were -- different. 

It had only been a few minutes. Outside, it was still the afternoon but -- we all felt so queer, as if we were waking up from some long dream. But the strange thing was that we all remembered that dream. It was more crystal-clear to us than anything in real life, as dreary as it was. 

The game was simply remembering that dream. We would play it for the rest of our time in the Professor’s house. We would remember new things that had happened in the dream. Once, the Professor found us in the library, trying to puzzle out what had happened at some particular time. 

When he heard what we called the game -- Narnia -- he smiled. I had always thought the poor Professor was unjustly maligned, not in my mind but perhaps in my parents’ minds as well. But when I observed his face when he heard us discussing Narnia, I wondered. He was pleased but he was also -- hungry. Like he’d wanted for so long to hear those words. But then he said something about supper being ready. 

I believed in Narnia as much as the others did then. Peter and I -- we went back one more time. I don’t know how to explain it. It wasn’t a dream, I don’t think. But it wasn’t real either. Narnia was another place. I don’t think it was meant to be lived in. When we left for the last time, I grieved. Naturally, I grieved. I felt like I had been cast out of the Garden. I didn’t understand why --

Claire thinks it’s significant that I call myself a daughter of Eve sometimes, but I feel no guilt associated with that. It is simply what I am -- I titled my first novel that. I was surprised as much as anyone when it was finally published, though I still think the reaction to it was rather overblown. 

Soon, Edmund and Lucy had their last adventures in Narnia too. They and Peter always wanted to talk about it. They loved to talk about it. They didn’t want to think about anything else. It was concerning, honestly. They were like changelings more than my siblings, except they didn’t change. Of course, they grew older -- bit by bit, but something in their eyes was different. They burned. 

Lucy especially frightened me. I had a chance to go to America with my parents at that time and when I returned, Lucy was -- it was the first time the two of us really fought. Not as children fight, but as grown-ups do. I said unforgivable things to her. She simply -- it was as if she was transparent as glass. She wasn’t here anymore. She was away. 

It was an accident, how they died. There were other fatalities -- my cousin, Eustace, another girl. A hideous scene. I couldn’t believe some of the pictures the newspapers published. They shouldn’t have been able to. 

Peter, Edmund, Lucy. They’ve been dead for almost forty years now. I have a few pictures of them, but that’s all. They were still children when they died. It shouldn’t have happened. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. Why would I have to _accept_ \-- 

Excuse me. 

[Break]

Then I was utterly alone in the world. I lost years of my life to my grief. It took me so long to find other people who would know me, who would love me, and even then I would think about my siblings and how much I missed them. I wanted to talk about Narnia with them again. I would agree that it was real, it wasn’t game or pretend. It was real and it had taken them away. It left me behind for reasons I cannot fathom. 

But I can guess, I suppose. 

I was too knowing. I was too foolish. I was spoiled. A silly little thing. 

I didn’t worship their God faithfully enough. I turned away from Him and He punished me and punished me and I don’t believe for a second -- 

[Break]

Thank you, Miss Robinson. Oh -- yes, Gertrude, of course. Thank you for the tea. 

I have had a good life. I’ve found love and fulfillment. I’ve visited beautiful places. I’ve grown up and I’ve grown old. Everything is as it should be. 

But lately, I have been thinking of my siblings again. When I saw Mr. Wright that evening -- I think it was an exhibition at the British Museum? We were looking at eighteen century love tokens -- one had a little lion carved on one side, a flowering plant on the other. Silly, really, that it should be a token of love. He seemed to know I was troubled and suggested I come here. But as you can see, I don’t have any paranormal stories to tell you. Just a sad little tale that means nothing at all. 

Hm? Oh no. I don’t belong to any church. My husband, before he died, took it up again but I didn’t join him. I don’t find places like that to be restful, as absurd as it sounds. I always feel as though I should look elsewhere for salvation, if salvation is what I seek.

*

Mrs. King left the institute in high spirits. She had invited Gertrude to a little dinner party that she was planning to throw the next week, but Gertrude hastily declined the pleasure as her schedule was unreliable. Mrs. King, though unfailingly polite, could not hide her doubt that the life of a sequestered academic could be anything _but_ reliable. 

Nonetheless, they parted on friendly terms. Gertrude set Elias off to research more about Susan King, née Pevensie, and the fates of the other Pevensie children. It was generally grim reading, but most of the information Mrs. King had proved to be reliable. 

As for ‘the game’ of Narnia -- Gertrude turned this over in her head. It did not seem to her that it was the work of any one Entity or several. What Mrs. King described was not fear or the absence of it, but rather something stranger and less sure. 

But no less cruel for those left behind. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title by John Donne. 
> 
> I wasn't able to figure out what Fear Entity Narnia would go under, because I think, frankly, it wouldn't be something to do with fear*. I think Susan, post-Narnia, would probably be a prime target for The Lonely (maybe some Lukas tried to court her) but I want to say that she dodged that bullet.
> 
>   
> * One of the things that always niggles me about TMA is that I want to believe there are other Powers out there besides Fear, but other than The Power of Love, but dunno if the canon has room for that. I think Narnia / Aslan is definitely in the realm of the Other. But what is that? I don't know, I'm very tired. 


End file.
